


Remnants of the Waking World

by lullabyemyuu



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Doomed Timelines, M/M, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lullabyemyuu/pseuds/lullabyemyuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ended a long time ago, and John and Dave are the only ones left.<br/>Time has not been kind to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remnants of the Waking World

**Author's Note:**

> Wow do I love writing sadstuck. Please enjoy.

The end of days has come and gone, it did so long ago, and left you within the shell of a dead universe. You think you had a hand in killing in, but you’re not quite sure anymore. It was all so long ago.

The Furthest Ring stretches out before you, the only piece of your world still left intact, beyond the destruction that seems to follow you wherever you go. It is not beautiful, it is ugly, and yet you cannot look away. You are too old and too forgetful to miss the clouds of Prospit, but there is a faint twinge in your heart and the fleeting memory of something gold that lingers behind your eyelids. It leaves you feeling empty and lost.

If life worked the same way it did on your thirteenth birthday, you should have been dead a long time ago. It’s something you find yourself thinking about often, while floating among the Horrorterrors. You believe that you might like to be dead, but the curse of immortality still hovers in your bones. You are a god, a helpless god, a gnostic and ignorant god who failed at the one task he was given. 

According to Dave, nothing the four of you could have done would have changed your fate. You were always meant to fail, if only because, in the Alpha Timeline, you succeeded. According to Dave, this is a Doomed Timeline and we were meant to have died such a long, long time ago. 

Your face contorts in pain as you think of Dave with a sword through his chest, over and over again. Resurrecting and dying and resurrecting again, a vicious cycle that you were forced to bear awful witness to. Something inside you breaks every time you find him with a blade inside him, his eyes glazed over in the sweet dream of death, if only for a little while. He says that he sees Jade and Rose when he sleeps, but you think he is lying. To you, Jade and Rose do not exist anymore.

Seeing Dave die so very many times, in a way neither heroic nor justified has destroyed you, and you think because of that, he tries more often. You are not the boy he once cared for and it kills you because you can’t remember who that boy was. If you could, you’d bring him back so that Dave could be happy again.

You haven’t seen him today, and you think it’s because, last night, you stopped him from committing temporary suicide. He didn’t understand, he never does. He doesn’t know why you’re so upset. But you know why he is always so angry. To him, you did not stop him from killing himself, you stopped him from seeing Rose and Jade and the trolls. But you can’t do this anymore. You can’t leave him and you can’t keep watching him die, so you stop him.

You keep staring into the Ring, willing the Horrorterrors to reach out a engulf you both with their tentacles, to take you into their embrace and numb your minds so that you don’t have to remember Rose and Jade’s beautiful deaths or Dave’s silent tears.

A familiar hand slips into yours and you start momentarily before glancing at Dave from the corner of your eye. He is crying again, not looking at you, but through you, possibly to a different session where things went a little differently. Or maybe he’s not looking at all, maybe he lost the will to a long time ago.

“I’m sorry, John.” He’s sobbing now, voice choked with awful little gasps. “I’m so, so sorry. I love you, John. I love you so, so much.”

You gasp a little and tighten your grip on him, as if afraid that he will fade away at any second. It has been so long since you heard those words and your heart beats a little faster. “Dave . . .”

“John . . . John, John, John, John,” he repeats your name like a little prayer, over and over again. He lets go of your hand and a jolt of panic goes through you before you repositions himself to wrap his arms around you. “I’m so, so sorry that I have to hurt you.”

And now you’re crying too because you can tell that he means, he means it with ever fibre of his being and you want so, so badly to go back being the John he loves. You kiss him for the first time in an eternity and he melts into you. Just for a moment, you can pretend that everything is back to normal. You want to tell him that it’s okay, but that would be a lie. You want to tell him you forgive him, but you are both so much at fault that it would be heresy for you to try and pardon him.

“I love you, Dave,” You whisper, voice cracking with disuse. It has been so long since you have spoken. “I love you more than death.” You know that he cannot reciprocate the sentiment, but you know this already. “I’m sorry I ever thought we could win this game.”

“Somewhere we did,” he sighs into your chest. “Somewhere, we are heroes.”

You almost laugh at this, and you don’t know why. “Yeah, Dave, somewhere.”

It hurts too much to let him go, so you don’t. The cast-off and forgotten saviors of the waking world and heroes of the dreaming dead close their eyes and entwine their hands, wishing for once as one to never again have to open them.


End file.
